8 months!

My main little man is now 8 months old. It has been such a blessing being this little boys mother. There is never a dull moment and I am constantly learning new things! 

I have to admit, I am very, very glad that Tommy is as happy as he is! Although, I'm not sure how he does it. After having a night of no sleep, he'll wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready for the day. I, on the other hand, want to burrow back in my covers and sleep for days. I'm sure one of these days we'll come to an agreement about sleeping through the night, but until then, I just keep praying that I will have the minimum amount of energy required to keep up with Tommy each day.

I mean, look at this boy! A few minutes before I took this picture he ran into the leg of our coffee table and got a big mark on his forehead and now he's nothing but smiles! Although, bumps and bruises are a common thing these days. "Hey Dale, where did Tommy get this scratch from?" "He has a scratch?" - A typical conversation in our house.

When we go and visit my parents house, their two little puppies always come and excitedly greet us at the door, and then promptly attack Thomas with kisses! We can't get Tommy out of his car seat fast enough so he can play with the puppies. We're trying to teach him to be gentle but he still grabs the fur on either side of the dogs' face and pulls them close! But the puppies retaliate with kisses on the cheeks and sometimes they nip at Tommy's fingers. It's safe to say, Tommy loves dogs! I definitely see us having dogs in the future!

Tommy gets to go on special trips with his Grandpa Dilts! A couple times now my dad has set up a little play date for him and Thomas. Dad comes and picks him up at our house and will take him to the nearby mall and walk around for a few hours. On their most recent trip, Grandpa bought Tommy a fun new toy! It's one of those rubber balls that are squishy and have the rubber strings sticking out of it. Thomas grabs hold of the strings, pulls them out as far as he can, and lets go! He loves hearing them snap back against the ball. Dale also discovered that it attracts electricity when you rub it on your head. I must say, I was a little shocked when I realized how much hair Tommy actually has!

At first I was positive that Tommy was going to be a mommy's boy. But now, I'm not so sure. The bond between father and son is very strong! (As it should be!) A few nights a week, Dale has a night class. When Dale comes home in the afternoon, Tommy is all smiles and so excited to play with his Daddy. And then it comes time for Dale to leave for his class. As soon as Dale closes the door and Tommy can't see him anymore, he just breaks down. Sobbing and weeping, all his limbs go heavy, he just lays where he is and cries. It's quite heart breaking! But Tommy always forgets that Dale leaves and gets just as excited again when he sees him next. These two will cause quite a bit of trouble together, I can tell.

I have a few reasons for including this picture above:

1. He looks like a little hipster with his big toque all bunched up in the back! So cute!

2. I don't think I've ever captured a photo where he is smiling so nice with his mouth closed! 

3. That face!

Last but not least, the most exciting thing in the past month that Tommy has learned: Crawling!

This video is of his first ever crawl, he is totally a pro now! He still does the army crawl where he drags his whole body everywhere but man, he's so fast! He's also getting up on his knees more and rocking back and forth, and he's really starting to figure out how to maneuver his feet so that he can pull himself up when he's holding on to something. 

His vocabulary has really increased too! He'll say "woah" if you pick him up quickly or if he sees something exciting and he'll say "mo-mo-mo" if you're feeding him and aren't paying attention and he wants more! We've also been teaching him signs. We use the sign for "more" and for "water" quite a bit. He hasn't started signing back to us just yet but when we ask him if he wants more or water and so the sign with it, if it's what he wants, he'll look right at us and smile nice and big to let us know we got it right. Ha ha. It's quite adorable!